egp writes:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that SAP and Freddie Mac are examples of companies that are actively seeking to increase the number of autistic employees. They tend to be better at concentrating on detailed work, such as a QA position.
What experiences have you had working with (or being) such individuals?
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Autistic Workers Deemed Asset by Some Firms
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by lucy on Saturday March 29 2014, @01:10PM
Found them perfectly suited to QA positions. Otherwise they can also be difficult to work with.
(Score: 5, Funny) by umafuckitt on Saturday March 29 2014, @01:15PM
I've found some non-autistic people also difficult to work with.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Mr_Flibble on Saturday March 29 2014, @01:44PM
I find people difficult to work with.
Just because I suffer from paranoia doesn't mean people aren't out to get me.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday March 29 2014, @01:57PM
IPC wears you out, I know. I prefer to make syscalls only, myself.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Saturday March 29 2014, @03:46PM
IPC can be mentally wearing, but I find context switches to be the hardest to cope with. I'd be much more productive at work if they'd let me only worry about one set of problems at a time.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:27PM
I find myself difficult to work with
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Saturday March 29 2014, @06:23PM
fap joke in 3..2..1..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @02:53PM
Is it because they're always getting worried about it being 10 minutes to Wapner?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by arthurdent on Saturday March 29 2014, @04:02PM
"It's hard to go into a corporate space if you prefer order to disorder," says Thorkil Sonne, founder of Specialisterne.
I think that says more about the failings of the company than it does about the capabilities of a subset of their employees.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:16PM
Very True.
The constant interruptions, meetings, flood of memos of questionable importance, other people's phones ringing, make it a difficult place to concentrate.
Presumably these people would be spared that constant assault on the senses, which makes me kinda want to get in line for the short bus.
Business has structured itself to be a social event over the last 40 years, much more so than it ever was in the past. As a contractor, I've been in situations where they just let you do your job instead of attending all the meetings. Then they marvel about how much you accomplish compared to their employees (which pisses off the employees). They simply fail to notice they are their own worst enemy when it comes to productivity.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:54PM
But making sure their TPS reports include the correct cover sheet is vitally important!
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Saturday March 29 2014, @06:52PM
This.
On days where I intentionally do not look at my email, or fail to have any meetings, or have to respond to minor things every few minutes, I get the big shit done.
subicular junctures
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:38PM
Same thing here. I've seen them in QA - once they have the perfect specimen firmly in their mind, damned near nothing escapes them. If a flaw escapes their attention once, you point it out to them, and it won't slide by again! I can't really agree that they are any more difficult to work with than the average knucklehead though. Maybe it depends on what kind of work you do. Although - my boss seems to get frustrated sometimes. Some flaws are acceptable, and she cannot make the QC people understand that, or not easily anyway.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @02:05PM
I had a autistic QA coworker once. He couldn't write a test specification himself, but could do the same test over and over again with high accuracy. So yeah - for some work they are better.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 29 2014, @03:47PM
We have an engineer here who's not only a socially-retarded autist, but a cocky one, and that's a terrible combination. His C/C++ code is ruthlessly efficient and completely uncommented and unreadable. He put a 15-day kill-switch on a piece of code we take out into the field to do field testing on our gadgets. The word "Final" is in the name of that code, and chatting him up about that code he told me that "Final" didn't mean that it was the last test, it meant that it was the last one to be coded because it was the only one that worked.
Apparently 3 or 4 other engineers (including a manager) were working on their own versions of that program, which takes a complicated stream of a certain data format and performs complex 3-D calculations and averaging in real time, and the others' versions either didn't work at all or were slow as shit. His was the only one that worked, so as a snub to his apparently less-talented coworkers and manager, he named it with the word "Final" in the title because it was gonna be the last one used in the company, dammit. He will call his co-workers idiots and behave in an extremely condescending manner to those who don't "get it" immediately like he does. And for everybody else, he tells them they look like Hornswoggle. [monstersandcritics.com] It's the reason why he's permanently stuck in a mid-level position despite his constant applying for higher positions, and he's fine with that, because he's just saving up for retirement and he knows the company would collapse from the inside if they fired him.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @04:59PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:20PM
Yep they just sound like an asshole.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @02:39PM
As somebody who isn't formally diagnosed but may be "on the spectrum" with some mild autistic traits I have mixed emotions about this. I have long gaps on my resume and am in one right now. I wish that instead of putting people in a "special program" that the HR program would become more accepting of quirks. That said, if this were in my area and I didn't think the company was evil I'd consider it. I do have to wonder though, what are the long term aspects of people within the company who are "part of the program" as opposed to just regular workers. These aren't your typical workshop kids assembling plastic parts. Guys in TFA had bachelor's degrees and are presumably quite verbal. As hard as my life is, I get a sense a real sense of accomplishment getting in the door just like anybody else. I'm not sure if I'd want to surrender that. Does anybody get this?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Jameso_ on Saturday March 29 2014, @06:56PM
I"m on the spectrum myself, and this is very insightful. Every job I've ever had is because I was lucky enough to know somebody who could get me past the HR wall. The true trouble with high-functioning ASD manifests in adulthood, when all the decisions to protect yourself from anxiety meltdowns by avoiding social situations come back to bite you when you realize you have no professional network to draw from after college. Once a brief period of unemployment sets in, it becomes self perpetuating and getting a job becomes more and more difficult as you become a pariah to HR reps and can never actually talk to the people who you would be working with directly.
After years of unemployment I finally managed to launch a career in contract programming, mainly because my brother is also in the field and got me that key first gig that pulled me out of unemployment purgatory. I completely agree that HR just needs to do a better job of actually understanding what a candidate should be, rather than just a checklist of acronyms and making sure all the right numbers are within certain thresholds.
That said, if I could go back in time and warn myself about what adulthood is really like, I'd do things differently, and I think a key to improving the unemployment situation for people with ASD is to educate them early about how careers actually work and what is required to actually GET a job, not just to DO a job. Also, that a not insignificant portion of any job does not involve the skill of the job at all, but navigating complex social landscapes and managing networks of contacts. I didn't make this realization until it was too late, but I'm hoping others who are still in school can turn things around before it becomes a serious problem like it did for me.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @07:29PM
I got a late-life formal diagnosis (wasn't even looking for it - went in for something else altogether). I've been loathe to accept the diagnosis, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it does explain an awful lot about how I've experienced life thus far. It's ... probably accurate. I should be relieved to be able to point to something specific and say, "This, right here, is what's going on. This explains me." For some reason, though, I'm not.
I've had a very difficult time dealing with office environments. The constant noise, the lighting, the smells, the temperature ... the "pretending to be a normal person" 8-9 hours in a row, it's exhausting. I'm intelligent, have high standards for myself and do good work (or so I've been told by many an employer), when I'm able to actually concentrate on what I'm doing (btw, I'm a software dev), but a standard office environment is diametrically opposed to that and I end up burning out quickly and leaving. As a result I, like you, have a gappy resume and, also like you, am currently ... gapped.
On the one hand I'd figuratively kill kittens to find an employer who was willing to work with my quirks so that I could perform at my peak (let me work in a more private location where I can control the lights/temperature/noise without bothering others, etc). I, like anyone, take pride in doing my job well and I would like the chance to feel that way on a more regular basis. On the other, though, I don't want to be viewed as some kind of defective, helmet-wearing special project employee. Also, I happen to believe that the things I feel I need in a work environment are things that would benefit all employees (again, thinking of other software devs). I would rather find employment with an employer who provided the sort of environment I prefer to all its employees than to agitate for accommodation just for myself.
Meanwhile, after so many decades of failure to adapt and fit in, I'm thinking maybe I'm just not built right and I should quit trying. I wonder how I'd do at bicycle repair...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @04:44PM
I'm sure it's like anything else - these corporations will probably be happy if they find the 5% of autistic people who are fantastically talented and fairly easy to get along with.
For the technology industry, autism is the last frontier - naive, trusting people who are content to have a job at all, regardless of the pay, and who have trouble in social environments. Imagine what sociopath managers would do with them. The only reason managers don't exploit them harder is that people are interchangeable "resources" to managers who don't even know what autism is.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 29 2014, @04:50PM
I mostly agree with you. So many of the leaders of companies trend sharply toward sociopathy. However a small corner of my manager's brain says it would be a blessing to have a team member who does his job well without complaining or drama. Dealing with those matters is 95% of my grief.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by elias on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:08PM
Perhaps the 5% you estimate is on the high side. Currenlty only about 15% of people on the autistic spectrum are employed [nydailynews.com].
It usually takes a while during a hiring process before you can talk to a "normal person" (i.e. somebody who understands what you are talking about and what you want to do)". This is a challenge for most technically inclined persons, and is likely to be even more challenging for someone facing challenges in social interaction.
On the other hand, my guess is that it takes a fabulous manager to "exploit" a resource high on the autistic spectrum. The manager will need to build up some kind of rapport, be able to set challenges that are a proper fit to the person and be able to create a sense of security around the work and the work space. The risk of abuse is likely much less of a worry, than challenge we face - in a world with more and more diagnosed autism - to bring up work participation beyond the 15% that it currently appears to stand at.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:09PM
Or are they just incapable? We hired someone who constantly claimed he had Asperger's disease. Instead of having some of the supposed positive traits of an Aspie, he figuratively couldn't find his way out of a wet paper bag when it came to work duties.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:42PM
Putting the mentally handicapped in wet paper bags is disgusting, and I won't stand for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:58PM
http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/03/28/152 1239 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @07:59PM
It's a conspiracy!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @08:04PM
Which was basically fine as he is really high functioning. He is extremely intelligent (and by extremely I mean extremely), so he can do a lot of things consciously that don't come naturally to him. Most people don't even know about his problem and would describe him as quite social.
That said, it was lucky for me that I was aware of the problem and that I had a pretty precise idea of what this might entail. Once I inadvertently brought him into panic mode. I was offered a great chance for my career, but for that I would have had to do something I had promised him not to do. I very carefully asked him whether perhaps for him things had changed in a way that might allow him to partially release me from my promise. By the general moral conventions of our field he was essentially obliged to say yes, but I was prepared for a No. I was shocked, however, when that No came in a quite rude way.
Knowing what I know, I did not get angry and simply let my career chance go by. A few years later something similar happened on a much smaller scale. Apparently, similar situations have led to great conflict in the past. But he made up for these problems with other things, and on balance I would say he is at least an OK boss, maybe even a good boss.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 30 2014, @01:15AM
Of course, it does depend on exactly what you promised, but as I don't know I can only assume something along the lines of 'not leaving before this project is complete'. In that case I find it strange that you chose to let a great career chance pass. That might turn out to be quite an expensive promise.
And besides, AS or not, your boss was not behaving in a professional way by getting angry and being rude. He should (and definitely could) know better.
That's a lot of slack you cut for 'maybe even a good boss'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 30 2014, @08:01AM
The career chance was only a temporary one that would have looked nice on my CV. I would have wanted to return afterwards. It's not clear to me whether it would have made a difference.
A person who is panicking can't behave professionally. The rudeness consisted only in omission. When you normally start and end your emails with greetings, it's a bad idea to leave them out in an email forbidding someone something. And forbidding is best done by explaining why you have no choice rather than explicitly. I am sure my autistic former boss knows all that intellectually. But he clearly was in panic mode and just clicked "send" on the first draft.
I don't require a boss to be perfect. All bosses have their positive and negative sides. My current boss is manipulative and treats me and my colleagues much the same way an animal trainer treats dangerous animals. Yet from what I heard, in the environment he inherited from his predecessor that's precisely what was needed at first. So he is likely the best boss I could have had there under the circumstances. If he manages to change his attitude in the long run (his previous task could in fact be described as akin to animal taming), I won't complain.